$588K flowed to ECOT staffers who signed non-disclosure pacts

Jim Siegel The Columbus Dispatch @phrontpage

Thursday

Jun 14, 2018 at 4:22 PMJun 14, 2018 at 4:41 PM

If ECOT employees who were laid off last year wanted two weeks of severance, plus some payout of unused sick time and time off, they had to promise to never make disparaging comments about the controversial school.

The now-shuttered Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow handed out $588,000 to 201 employees last year as the school laid off workers in response to the state forcing it to repay $60 million for unverified enrollment — a figure later raised to $80 million.

Employees, most of whom earned less than $50,000, got severance pay commonly between $1,500 and $4,000 — but only if they signed an agreement that said:

“You agree that you have not and will not make statements to anyone that are in any way disparaging or negative toward ECOT, including disparaging remarks about individuals associated with ECOT or the services it provides.”

The paragraph appears to cover not only the school, but also Altair and IQ Innovations, the for-profit school management and software companies owned by ECOT founder Bill Lager.

“More than half a million dollars was spent in public funds as hush money,” said Catherine Turcer of Common Cause Ohio, who released documents that they and others, including the Dispatch, obtained through a public records request. “To include a non-disparagement agreement, the idea that public funds would actually be spent to … make it harder for all of us to understand what was happening at ECOT is really problematic.”

Turcer and Stephen Dyer of the liberal think tank Innovation Ohio said the problem wasn’t that laid off employees were getting severance, but that they were first required to sign a document keeping them quiet.

Severance or non-disclosure agreements may be common in the private sector, but “the public sector, if nothing else, is all about transparency,” Dyer said. “This is all highly unusual and certainly, given the time period, smacks of a major cover-up attempt.”

The severance agreement also prohibited the former workers from discussing that they had signed the document, and prohibits them from ever filing a future lawsuit against the school.

ECOT’s position is that employees may acquire confidential information through their employment, and the agreement requires them to keep that confidential, said Myron Terlecky, the court-appointed special master overseeing the closure of ECOT, which was shut down by its sponsor in January leaving roughly 12,000 students searching for a new school.

However, he said, the agreement does not prevent former workers from reporting possible violations of law or participating in any law enforcement investigation. State Auditor Dave Yost last month referred to prosecutors potential criminal fraud charges against school officials.

Some traditional public schools also have employees sign non-disclosure agreements, but officials say they are used sparingly, often involving higher-level officials, such as superintendents, who are let go (or pushed out) before their contracts expire.

Asked about the ECOT agreement, Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which sponsors 11 charter schools in Ohio, said “People should be free to speak their minds, especially when they’ve been an employee of a public entity.”

“Those types of agreements, whether legal or not legal, leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and feel sort of anti-First Amendment.”

Meanwhile, Terlecky this week asked Franklin County Judge Michael Holbrook for permission to pay out $384,000 to about 200 former and still-active employees for 50 percent of their unused paid time off, as called for in the school employee handbook. Most of the employees were let go Jan. 30.

The payout includes $29,600 to ECOT Superintendent Brittny Pierson.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

@phrontpage

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